I didn't attend the march on the evening of December 7th, 2014, but from what I saw of it, it involved a great deal more destruction, unlike the first night. Of course, the new reports of both nights were the same. The first night, even though only a couple of windows were broken by fewer than ten people, that was all the news reports wanted to focus on so the protests could be easily discounted and lose the respect and support of the general public. The second night saw a much greater amount of destruction in Downtown Berkeley on Shattuck Avenue. This destruction was undoubtedly perpetrated by the same white anarchists as the first night, but there's another key group that may well have been present to instigate and participate in the destruction: the police. Does that sound like a conspiracy theory? Yes. Is it? No.

Yes. Undercover police, wearing face masks much like some of the people that did damage the previous night are inside the protests, with some reporting that those officers were witnessed banging on windows attempting to draw people into breaking them. Also interesting to note that on the first night the protesters on Telegraph were met with extreme force when they were just standing around chanting. Why is it that on the second night, the police did not meet the group actually committing illegal acts on Shattuck by breaking into businesses and stealing with the same amount of force?

Abstract marching photo from December 8th that I just included because I like it - photo by Kyle Cameron

Shut it Down for Michael Brown

That aside, I'm going to move on to the protest that took place on December 8th. It began in the same place at the same time as the two previous nights. This time, I noticed a different atmosphere. A few of the things I could place my finger on was that there were fewer white people with megaphones stealing attention, there was more audible discomfort when people starting saying things like "All Lives Matter", and on the only occasion I heard that said, people quickly shut it down. Beyond that, protesters were more prepared for potential vandalism. There were protesters keeping an eye out for anything, and I witnessed one man pick up a brick and then a couple went up to him and told him that it's not worth it and tried to get him to throw it away. I saw images from the previous night in which protesters linked arms in front of businesses to protect the windows, and people were prepared to do more of that on this night. It was also a much larger and more diverse crowd.

One of the men with a megaphone trying to speak to the crowd in front of the Berkeley Police Station on the night of December 8th, in Berkeley, CA - photo by Kyle Cameron

Man sits on signal post in front of Berkeley Police Station - photo by Kyle Cameron

The route was much the same that night as it was on the first night. A winding route from Sproul Plaza on campus down to Shattuck, then to the police station, then heading down University. At the police station, the police played the same game, and just waited it out until some of the crowd got antsy and decided to keep moving while others stayed at the station -- an effective strategy for thinning out the numbers in the main group. However, on that night it didn't seem to have a visible impact. In fact, it actually felt like by the time we reached University, the crowd had grown even larger. I can't say how many exactly and I don't particularly care to throw out a random guess, but the number was significant. At that point, it was pretty clear people were heading for the freeway, again, like the first night. At no point on Telegraph was there any trouble. No broken windows, no vandalism, no trash cans in the street, no attempts to form barricades. Total peace.

Small group of people having dinner show support for the protesters on University Avenue in Berkeley, CA - photo by Kyle Cameron

Gaining Ground

I want to touch on the above photo for just a second. First of all, it made me think a little about this. When I saw these people who had come outside from their dinner to show their support for the protesters and what they were marching for, I felt an odd sense of hopefulness. That's not to say the fact that people have been going out all over the world to protest what's happening doesn't give me hope, but there was something about this moment that inspired that feeling. I know I said in the previous post that white people shouldn't be posing with their hands up as a show of solidarity, but it didn't bother me to see these people doing it. I think I was happy to see these people whose dinner had just been interrupted come outside and show that they too care. They too believe black lives matter. They too are fed up with police violence. White, moderate, middle class Americans are one of the major groups that need to be convinced of this, and even though people in Berkeley aren't necessarily as representative of that demographic, I was still glad to see these people showing support.

Marshmallow man. This man was riding along throwing pink marshmallows out to the crowd - photo by Kyle Cameron

Some of the crowd gathered at University and 6th street in Berkeley being blocked from the bridge by a police line - photo by Kyle Cameron

To the Freeway

Helicopter overhead shining its spotlight down at the protesters on 6th Street - photo by Kyle Cameron

The group was stopped there for a short while at the intersection in front of the bridge. There was some indecision on where to go at that point. A very small group of 15-20 claimed they had found a way onto the freeway so I followed them. I heard from the main group that a fair number had broken off and were heading North. The small group I followed briefly made the freeway but CHP quickly arrived and blocked access. By then, there was a small trickle of protesters from the main group moving to the pedestrian bridge. I think some people were catching onto the idea of moving over the pedestrian bridge and accessing the freeway from the other side, but police quickly moved to block that entrance as well, and sent some officers to attempt to block the pedestrian bridge. They were, however, blocked by protesters as pictured below.

Eventually the officers on the bikes turned around and left, and I moved back down under the pedestrian bridge to a path running parallel to the freeway where protesters began bringing down a chain link fence and getting onto the freeway. This was short lived and CHP got them off very quickly. At this point, it seemed to become a sort of cat and mouse game of protesters moving down, testing the fence, and seeing if police would get there. People kept moving down, but the number of people there wasn't great enough to make it a challenge for people to be removed from the freeway. There was one point at which a decent number of people made it on and stopped traffic for about ten minutes, but they were pushed off quickly enough, pictured below. In that same picture, you can see I'm positioned on the wall. I guess an officer behind me was telling me to get off the wall, but I couldn't really see him, hear him, or realize he was talking to me, but at some point he decided to just push me off the wall which was about a three foot fall onto a chain link fence. I was uninjured, but it was rather unpleasant and drew anger from protesters that witnessed the action.

A small group of protesters had just been pushed back off the freeway at this point - photo by Kyle Cameron

The group that had just been pushed off for a second time - photo by Kyle Cameron

A large group comes to back up the group at the freeway - photo by Kyle Cameron

I confronted the officer about him shoving me off a wall, and he said he did it because he was telling me to get off the freeway and I wasn't getting off, but again, I never heard him because he was talking to my back. And even if I had actually been on the freeway at the time, and he was talking to my face and I still wasn't getting off, he could have gently grabbed my arm and helped me down or something. I'll get back on track. At this point, I walked back to the bridge to assess the situation when I saw a very sizable group of protesters moving in from University. It's a little hard to see in the picture above, but there's a significant number of people marching in from the group that was on University. With these new numbers, the group became more confident and people began running south on the path to reach a point that was unguarded by CHP which was already spread thin. The fence was brought down and hundreds of people began to flood onto the freeway, stopping North and Southbound traffic on I-80. One group formed a solid line on the Northbound lane, while the group on the Southbound lane began advancing Southward.

Woman facing police on the Northbound lane of Interstate 80 in Berkeley, CA on December 8th, 2014 - photo by Kyle Cameron

Woman with megaphone set against the moon giving instructions to protesters advancing Southward on Interstate 80 - photo by Kyle Cameron

Someone brought to my attention the pretty obvious fact that police would almost certainly surround the Southbound group at some point, and that unless more people joined them, they'd probably end up being driven off or arrested. The group in the Northbound lane was set on staying and blocking traffic from advancing which was actually quite helpful because the presence of stopped vehicles in the Northbound lane meant that the police couldn't form an effective line preventing the protesters from advancing and it also meant that they couldn't fire tear gas or any other non-lethal weapons, so every time that a police blockade was formed on the Southbound lane, protesters would snake back on to the Northbound lane and weave through the vehicles. Along the way, dozens of people who were stuck in traffic gave honks of support, high-fived marchers, and cheered out of their windows. I wished several people who had exited their vehicles a nice evening and none of them seemed particularly angry.

Demonstrators march down both lanes of Interstate 80 in Emeryville, CA on December 8th, 2014 - photo by Kyle Cameron

Protesters marching South on Interstate 80 in Emeryville, CA being lit by helicopter - photo by Kyle Cameron

Protesters Marching on Interstate 80 - photo by Kyle Cameron

After snaking back and forth for some time traffic in the Northbound lane began moving again, and I was informed that the line of protesters in that lane had been cleared by police and we were on our own. After marching a little further, demonstrators met a police line near the Courtyard Marriott in Emeryville. You can see in the image just how far traffic was backed up.

Direct Action

I'm going to step away from documentation again for a moment to take a quick look at disruption as a tactic. I found a really simple explanation of Direct Action, which I would categorize disruption as, linked to here. Take a quick look at that, and then if you'd like to read more, the Wikipedia article is here. You've probably seen in major news outlets desperate to discount these protests that a woman went into labor while stuck in traffic and required emergency assistance to get to the hospital. While I certainly don't know where she was headed, I kind of presume that she would have gone into labor while driving anyway, which may have been more dangerous than going into labor while stopped. No matter where she had been, emergency crews would have had to get to her, and I imagine they didn't have that hard of a time reaching her because protesters certainly aren't going to block fire trucks or ambulances.

End of the Line

Returning to documentation. This police line marked the end of the march toward the bridge, and if you thought any of the officers in any of my other images from these protests were well armored, you should have seen the CHP officers that arrived to back up the initial line. It looked like they were ready for war with their shields and heavy body armor. You can see in the image below one of the officers in the initial line that has a straight up assault rifle. There aren't any bean bags or foam bullets in there. He shoots you with that and you're dead. Good thing he brought it to a peaceful protest in case any of us pulled out our assault weapons. I heard reports from someone else that they had seen an officer with a similar style assault rifle, but he actually had a drum magazine, you know, the kind that can hold 100 rounds. That officer alone could have killed almost every single protester on that freeway. AND WE WERE ENTIRELY PEACEFUL. If you don't already think the police are going a little far, I hope you understand at this point. I'd like to stress that at this point in the evening, on the largest of all of the protests that had happened so far, no destruction had happened. This was a completely peaceful protest, and it was met with the potential for lethal force. Again, where were these officers when looting happened the previous night? They are not here to protect the peace. They are here to protect you from having peace.

CHP Officer with tactical assault weapon complete with foregrip and what looks like some sort of scope, and it doesn't look like he has anything non-lethal chambered - photo by Kyle Cameron

Backup eventually arrived, and protesters were forced off the freeway down into the parking lot of the CVS in Emeryville. Some people began to disperse but suddenly a police line appeared from around a corner and immediately fired 2-4 non-lethal rounds at people trying to run away who may not have even seen the police yet. I found one of the foam rounds lying on the ground later and it looked wholly unpleasant to be hit with. The message they're trying to send? We won't tell you what is going to happen to you next, but if you try to escape, you will be shot. That sounds like hyperbole, doesn't it? Okay, maybe you think, 'oh, well being shot with non-lethal rounds doesn't count.' Great, that's fine. But when two people tried to sneak out through a hole in the fence in the back corner, an officer pulled out his sidearm, which is absolutely not loaded with non-lethal rounds. When asked why we couldn't leave, an officer responded with, 'because I told you so.' If you try to escape, you will be shot. This is not hyperbole. You can see a couple images from the inside of the kettle below.

Protesters sitting in the CVS parking lot in Emeryville, CA. Police refused to speak to anybody about what would happen next - photo by Kyle Cameron

Protesters singing while trapped between police lines. At this point, officers still refused to say what was happening, but it was fairly obvious by then - photo by Kyle Cameron

Jail

So what happened next? Well, you've probably seen the news, and frankly, if you haven't and you've made it this far in this story, it should be fairly obvious. They arrested every single person in that kettle. There was a group of people who had parked their motorcycles in that lot just as police closed it off. One of them ended up in handcuffs before some careful talking got them all free. There may have been Ross shoppers or employees stuck in there as well. The process of arresting everybody was, and I'm not joking, one of the stupidest things I've ever personally witnessed. There were enough officers standing shoulder to shoulder to surround a group of no fewer than 150 protesters, plus dozens more officers scattered around, and they arrested those 150 people ONE. AT. A. TIME. Are you a person who is opposed to paying taxes for public services like roads, and really opposed to supporting things like Medicare? Well your taxes are going to paying something like 75 officers to stand around watching while three of them actually arrest anyone. It took about two hours for everybody to end up in cuffs. If you've been handcuffed and forced to sit on the cold, hard asphalt in those cuffs, you know how uncomfortable it is. If you haven't, I'm sure you can imagine. I got tired of being uncomfortable, so I slipped out of mine.

Next, they spent an hour loading everybody into the buses. People actually cheered when they saw the buses arrive, that's how ridiculous this situation was. Meanwhile, those 75 officers were burning your tax dollars taking selfies and chatting about the game. There was a single officer who moved around the group giving people water and attending to their medical needs. There was one woman who claimed she was suffering from toxic shock syndrome because her tampon had been in for too long. I can't speak to whether or not this was true, but my inclination was to believe her, yet despite her crying out and being visibly distressed for ten minutes, nobody attended to her. In fact, I don't recall anyone ever attending to her. Finally, it was my turn to get on the bus. Unfortunately I was stupid and didn't slip my cuffs back on when I was up, so the officer searching me took my gloves and watch off and then re-cuffed me so tightly that my wrists hurt for a day afterwards. The bus, as it turns out, was worse than the ground. There's no good way to sit in a seat with you hands cuffed behind your back, it was shockingly hot, dark, the bus felt like it lacked any suspension at all, and they played all of the worst hits of the 1970s.

We finally arrived at the prison and were loaded out of the bus, ladies first. Gee, how chivalrous of them. When I got out of the bus, I witnessed a line of men facing the wall, legs spread out. I looked to my right briefly and saw a group of scared looking people get off another bus and face a chain link fence towards me. I was told by an officer no talking, no looking away from the wall. To be honest, at that moment, the images running through my head were all those that you see in World War 2 movies. The ones where they line people up on the walls in the camps and mow them down. The first wave German Jews likely didn't expect to be killed when they were jailed, and nor did I. I'm not saying that the police are just going to start rounding up people and executing them like Nazi Germany, I'm just saying that's the imagery this situation evoked. It was rather unpleasant. I, having forgotten my ID at home, was led into the "keeper" tank. Side note: always carry your ID everywhere. Here I meet the eleven men who would be my cell mates for the next twelve hours. After giving them my name and phone number for the third or fourth time, we were led to another holding tank for our phone calls. The phone didn't seem to work, though, so I don't think anybody got a hold of anyone. We were then led down an immensely long set of corridors and courtyards to our cell. Santa Rita is quite large.

The jail cells sucked. Metal bunk beds with no mattresses, pillows, or blankets, and it was freezing cold. I normally run very warm -- I'm the kind of person who takes short walks through the snow barefoot -- and I was shivering. The bunk I stupidly picked had dried vomit or something on it. I of course could have gotten up and moved to another of the 36 bunks in there, but I didn't for whatever reason. Jail is also very boring, imaginably. It is supposed to be a punishment after all. We got to the cell around 4am, and around 7 or 7:30am, the first group was released, and we also received food. This was one of the most dehumanizing experiences I've had. They brought up crates with sealed plastic bags containing an assortment of food items. They then opened the cell door, had us all line up against the wall, and walk one by one up to one guard who'd basically throw the bag into our hands while the other guard said, 'you're welcome' like a drone, and then we went back to the cell. While she was handing us the food, she said, 'this is normally how we do feedings.' "Feeding." Like you feed an animal in a cage. The food was disgusting, as you might imagine. There was something that looked like bologna but I just threw it out and ate my stale bread with the mustard packets they gave us. The bread was still really floury inside. There was also an unripe orange, a packet of fruit punch mix that you can add to the funky water from the cell, and a bag of assorted pretzels.

After almost everyone else had been released, we were still waiting in our cell. It was around noon at this point. The guards had some people who looked like other prisoners in the jail bring in tons of mattresses, seemingly in preparation for the occupation of that wing once we left. We were then instructed to carry the mattresses up to our cell. Wow, great. Almost two hours later, we were asking about how long it would take for us to be released. The guard said he didn't know, but that we should be grateful that they brought us mattresses and blankets. Grateful. We didn't even have blankets, and they brought mattresses when we were about to be released. As we were led out of the cell to be released, I saw them bringing in blankets. From what I heard later, the women didn't receive mattresses upon arrival either, but they did get blankets, though apparently they were wet blankets. I also heard from somebody say that their guards asked them for a good Yelp review. What?

Finally, a small number of us were led back to the holding tank with the non-working phone because they were apparently still having trouble pulling up our information. I guess there are just thousands of other Kyle Camerons born on October 5th, 1992 that live in the United States. I later figured out their actual struggle. Over the course of the arrest and jailing process, I had given out my name and birth date no fewer than six times. When I was finally brought out to look over one of the forms they were using, it said my name was Kyle Camerzon, born October 5th 1982. And although I had on multiple occasions offered to give them my SSN because I don't know my driver's license number, they said that all they wanted was the DL number. Of course, when I corrected that form, the guy also asked if I knew my SSN. Five minutes later I was released.

The whole process might as well have been theatre of the absurd. It was an absolutely ridiculous joke. The level of incompetence displayed by every single person in that facility and during the arrest process was something I rarely witness in real life. They seemed like they were just having a fun time with us, alternately treating us like elementary students learning a lesson about why you don't do bad things, and treating us like actual inmates/animals (because really, they're not so different). It was just completely surreal, and I only spent 12 hours there. I can't imagine spending a week there, let alone spending years in a place like that. It's not rehabilitation, it's just dehumanizing punishment that we disproportionately hand out to people of color if they aren't executed in the street for jaywalking. I came out of jail angrier than I was when I went it. I'm even more determined to see that system dismantled and changed now. And that was 12 hours.

Black Lives Matter

I don't really know how to conclude all of this. I hope that if you've made it this far in life and in this piece and you somehow, beyond all reason, didn't see an issue with our justice system, you do now. I hope you understand a little better that these protesters are completely peaceful, and that you think that the police response to them was at least just slightly heavy-handed. If you believe that Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Trayvon Martin, and the thousands of other black men and women who have been executed on the street for crimes like shopping in a Wal-Mart, trying to enter their own homes, asking for directions, or just minding their own business while walking down a sidewalk, if you have so much as a shred of doubt as to whether or not any of them deserved to die, I hope that you're starting realize that not a single one did. Question why James Holmes, a white man wearing full body armor who massacred 12 people watching a movie in Colorado is still alive, while any of those people I just named aren't. Have you called any of those men thugs while calling James Holmes a troubled youth? Question that. Do your homework, do a lot of reading about these issues, and swallow your pride and admit it: you are wrong.

In the days since the decision to not indict Darren Wilson or Daniel Pantaleo, demonstrations have been happening around the world. Not to say they weren't happening before -- Every day since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, protesters have been on the streets there -- but since the non-indictments, the rage has increased. We've also seen the killings of Tamir Rice, a 12 year old boy in Ohio, and John Crawford III, also in Ohio. Tamir was killed while playing in a park, and John was killed while on his phone, shopping in a Walmart. Three of those killings were captured on camera, one of them showing the officer that murdered Eric Garner using a chokehold which is banned by the NYPD, and the video of John Crawford's murder completely disproves the officer's statement, and shows Crawford was clearly not a threat. I will attach the videos at the bottom of this post, but be warned that they are obviously graphic.

This is nothing new.

A man flashes a peace sign while protesters stop in front of the Berkeley Police Station on December 8th, 2014 - photo by Kyle Cameron

Racist violence has plagued this country since the very first white colonists arrived hundreds of years ago, and it's largely been brushed under the rug in our history text books, and in popular media. However, the advent of social media in the last few years seems to be having a significant effect on the spread of information that hasn't been altered to fit a narrative. In the past, we most likely would not have seen the videos of any of these murders, because the only people who controlled the spread of those videos were TV news organizations, who wesee today still creating narratives that call all black men who were murdered by police "thugs" who had troubled pasts including numerous arrests. If they can't find anything like that, they'll still talk about how they smoked marijuana at some point in their life, desperately trying to find any shred of an excuse that can somehow convince people that they deserved to die. Now we're seeing the evidence without the fake narrative. We're seeing the unedited videos of the murders, and even though the officers are still walking away without even an indictment, the masses are starting to catch on.

Protesters in front of the Berkeley Police Station on December 8th, 2014 in Berkeley, CA - photo by Kyle Cameron

I'm going to step away from all of that for a moment and talk about the protests I've been documenting in Berkeley, CA the last couple of nights. I probably should have stated this from the beginning, but I'm speaking here from a position of immense privilege. Straight, white, cis, male. On the first night of the protests, I felt rather uncomfortable. The majority of people at the front of the pack of protesters was white, I'd occasionally hear people start chanting, "All Live Matter", too many white people with megaphones, and there were many, many white people putting their hands up saying, "Hands Up Don't Shoot." Are white people the ones being shot in the back while their hands are up? Are they being choked to death on camera? Do we call white people that riot and burn carsthugs? Does a significant portion of this country believe white people deserve to die for jaywalking? NO. So when I saw those things on the first nights of protests, I felt uncomfortable and rather annoyed, though conflicted because there is great power in numbers, and even if some of those numbers are saying stupid shit because they don't quite get it, they're still there in the name of the same cause, supporting people they care about, albeit in some ways they maybe shouldn't.

Moving right along (not to brush the previous issue under the rug as it's incredibly important and we should all critically examine the ways we occupy space during protests and realize this movement is about black lives, and black voices are the most important in these protests). I joined up at the start of the first protest at 5pm on December 6th. While I absolutely support what people are marching for, I was largely there to document, and film police when they became violent, and to provide water, food, and very basic first aid to protesters. I marched along with them on a winding path to the Berkeley Police Station. It was there that things began to change. There were two groups that decided to split up at that point because they had different goals. It's worth noting that this is exactly what police want -- they stop a group long enough for some people to get antsy, wait for them to split off, and then let the other group through to separate the numbers and make it easier to deal with the individual groups. Anyway, one group, the group I stuck with, wanted to march down University to the freeway. Right after the groups split, things got slightly ugly for a moment.

Among the protesters was a small minority of white anarchists who are there just because they want an excuse to antagonize they police. It was generally fairly easy to tell who they were, as many were wearing all black and sporting full face masks. They were typically the ones throwing bottles at the police. At one point shortly after the split, one threw a sand bag at an officer and the response was what I think was a foam round of some sort that was fired seemingly at random into the crowd. Then there were two rounds of smoke or tear gas fired into the crowd.

Gas or smoke fired near Police Station on December 6th - photo by Kyle Cameron

More smoke, gas or just a sparkler to induce panic fired near Police Station on December 6th - photo by Kyle Cameron

Almost immediately after this, a very small group of white people dressed in all black and wearing face masks broke into the Trader Joe's and stole alcohol and then ran away. A little further down the street an even smaller group broke into the Radio Shack on University. A single person smashed the glass doors of a Wells Fargo on University on Shattuck with a hammer. Each time, the mass of protesters begged the people not to damage anything. In all, out of maybe 250 people marching down University, and the hundreds more protesting elsewhere later in the night, the news that came out about the protests focused on the damage that only about ten people did. See a problem there? I hope you do.

Wells Fargo was the last of the damage I witnessed. From there, it wasn't too much further to 4th and University where the police had already formed a line to defend the freeway. From there, the crowd marched back up University and then moved North on San Pablo. Eventually they were stopped again and pushed down a small residential side street. It was obvious what would happen next, but people pushed on until they hit another police line and were surrounded on both sides. At that point, a good number of people worked together to bring down a chain link fence leading into an empty lot so the 150 or so people could escape. Protesters offered assistance to less able-bodied people in jumping down from that ledge, and hopping over a shorter fence. While people climber the shorter fence, police opened fire with two seemingly random rubber bullets. Both struck, and one man was hit badly enough that protesters had to call him an ambulance because he could no longer walk.

The last of that group near MLK and University. - photo by Kyle Cameron

Small group marching back up East on University - photo by Kyle Cameron

It was at that point, back near MLK and University, and the group mostly dispersed because so many numbers had been lost. A small group kept marching up University but once reaching Shattuck, the white anarchists were the largest presence and were creating a mess by throwing down trash cans in the streets and trying to light fires and threatening people in cars. People kept trying to stop them but they were incredibly aggressive. I guess the other group had gained traction and was back on Telegraph. I was unable to get through, so I stuck around there for a while. It was while I was there that I heard a girl yelling at the police, nearly in tears, because three of them had just tackled her 15 year old friend as he was just walking out of a store. He wasn't present so they may have arrested him for just leaving a store at the wrong time and because he was black. This was in front of the ShareTea, so most of the people in there had come out to see what was happening. After a while, I attempted to go around through Sather Lane and up Durant, but there was another police line there, this one significantly more aggressive. Aggressive as in there was a woman who looked to be the same age as my grandmother who walked slowly up to one to ask him how she should get home, and he yelled at her to back up and held his baton in a way that shows he will strike if you don't move. He did this to any of the people who went up to him to ask how to get home. Kudos to him for building good relations with the people he's supposed to protect and serve by preventing them from getting home, refusing to tell them how to actually get home, and threatening to physically disable them if they ask questions.

Man burns stuffed pig in front of ShareTea police line on Bancroft in Berkeley, CA December 6th, 2014 - photo by Kyle Cameron

And then out of nowhere, came the sound of tear gas canisters being fired. The protesters were sent running, and the police kept firing tear gas at the crowd, as well as what I imagine must have been flashbang grenades or something because they made a huge amount of sound, though the explosions happened out of my sight line so I don't know if they were also designed to visually impair. Regardless, this action appeared unprovoked. At this point, the police line blocking Durant broke, and I was able to return home. My time at home was short lived. I went back out to rejoin the protesters on Telegraph who had regrouped despite the tear gas. After a rather long period, the police started forcing a huge mass of people onto Telegraph, regardless of whether they were protesting or just trying to get home. They then kept pushing people down Telegraph very forcefully, beating those who didn't or couldn't move with their sticks. Of course, with the number of people, it was actually impossible to move at the same rate as the police so there were a lot of people who were shoved to the ground or beaten and crushed at the same time. I was unfortunate enough to have ended up right between to protesters and the police at that point and was shoved into an immovable crowd and then shoved some more. At one point they shoved somebody else into my face. My nose still hurts today from that, and the was another student right next to me who appeared to be in the same nose boat. As they kept shoving, people were holding onto each other for support just so they didn't end up on the ground trampled to death. The police kept pushing to an arbitrary point at which they decided to begin firing more tear gas into the crowd which they kept pushing South on Telegraph into Oakland.

The photo at the top of this post is from the tear gassing. This ended up being a more abstract view of the tear gassing. Those are the people who are supposed to protect and serve you. Does this image make you feel safe? Are those peace officers there, or are they terrorists who just fired chemical weapons that are banned in war on a crowd of peaceful protesters? - photo by Kyle Cameron

Tear gas is rather unpleasant, as you might imagine. At some point past Ashby and Telegraph, the crowd had sufficiently decreased in size for the police, so they just left. It was at that point around 2:30am on December 7th, that I also broke away from the group. I had been marching for almost 10 hours at that point and I could barely walk, my nose and eyes were killing me, and I was dehydrated.

Tomorrow, I will post about the second day of protests I documented. The downside of social media is that it really decreases our attention span. Below are the videos I previously mentioned. Remember, they are graphic and disturbing. If you choose to watch them, keep in mind the first two take place in Ohio, a state in which it's completely legal to openly carry a loaded firearm. Tamir and John were killed for holding fake guns in non-threatening ways, one of them had just picked it up in a store. In the video of Tamir, it looks almost like a drive-by shooting. He falls to the ground almost instantly after the officer opens his door. If you think any of these people deserved to die, you are wrong, and you are racist. Black Lives Matter.

I was walking home from work the other night and just minutes after I had walked into my building, I heard chanting outside and saw flashing lights. I went out to see what was up and discovered there were people walking northbound on Telegraph Avenue demonstrating against the unjust shooting of Mike Brown, an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9th, 2014.

I saw the man in the above photo arrested shortly after I took it, and from what I gathered from the news, he was arrested for "suspicion of resisting or obstructing a police officer." I also saw him take a few blows from an officer's baton. I never saw him resisting, and I certainly never saw him do anything that warranted his being beaten with a club.

This is a text heavy post, but it has multiple photos! Feel free to skip over the text. I know nobody besides my family really cares about what's going on in my life, but whatcha gonna do? The story laid out below simply serves as the context for all of the images.

The last few days have been rather hectic. On Thursday, my first class was normal. Then I went to my second class, Yiddish in Theatre and Film, a history class. It was the final day of lecture, which meant it was time for our final project. There are only 9 people that are actually in the class, so instead of writing a big final paper, the class did a joint project at the insistence of our professor. He wanted us to do a Yiddish dance, so we came up with the choreography on Tuesday and then performed it on Friday. Our professor participated in the dance as well. The best part is that I think that ends up coming out to about 40% of our grade. So you know, there's that. Immediately after that, I headed over to rehearse for a scene that I was performing the next day. My scene partner was 30 minutes late, but whatever. We rehearsed for a bit and then I believe I headed over to the Campanile to do some portraits for a friend friend with the carillon.

Fun side note about the portraits: This is the first time I've had the opportunity to really test out my new LED light panel and it works really well. Perhaps I'll do a review of it soon, but I just want to say that it's super helpful.

On we go. Friday morning, I left my place around 9:00 to head to class. It was fine and at the end, my professor said that she might put me on a Room 7 show in the Fall. After that, I went to my section where I was supposed to have a presentation but we ran out of time so I didn't have to go (hooray!). Then I went to rehearse my scene a final time, popped home for less than an hour to grab some equipment for later, and then went to my next class really early to get everything set up for the scene. The scene went fine, and immediately after class ended, I went to the next building over to run tech for a friend's a capella group. I shot this on the way home from that because I was also filming the show so I had my camera with me.

The next day, it was time for me to do photography for the 7th Annual Queer and Asian Conference at the request of a friend. I was there from 9:15 in the morning until 5:00 at which point I left to go do tech for the second night of the a capella show which ran until around 9:45. I stopped at home very briefly to drop off my gear and then I headed out to meet some people to see The Amazing Spiderman 2 at 10:30. It was pretty good. Much like the first film of the reboot, it was better than the previous Spiderman trilogy. Then I was offered the option of free food, so I naturally opted for that road which resulted in me staying up all night and re-watching Black Dynamite. I finally went to sleep on a couch at around 7:30am, and woke up at 11:45.

Lunch Line at QACON

At that point, I ate more free food, and then went home briefly to wash my face before I headed back to the Campanile to listen to my friend's final recital and then go check out the very tippity top of the tower. For whatever reason, I thought it would be super smart to run up the equivalent of ~20 stories of stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. On the plus side, we were exactly as fast as the elevator, on the down side, I very nearly fainted which was a new thing for me. Sleep before heavy physical exertion, kids. At least the top was worth it. If you ever happen to be up there after an end of semester recital and you see a ticket stub for The Amazing Spiderman 2, it's mine.

I got home around 5:30, finally thinking it was over. I cleaned up my place that had become a hideous mess over the last month of not being home much, I ate, and I sat down to do my take home final. After completing that, I started last night's episode of Game of Thrones (S04E05 for those in the future). I only got halfway through when I heard a knock on my door. From there, it turned into YouTube viewing, a video chat, and an unannounced free pizza delivery. At 3am, I finally laid down to sleep.

Thus ends my tale. But before I depart, I shall leave you with a parting gift. It is fun, much like that other song by the same band that I put on my previous blog post.

Once again, my path was blocked by caution tape. This time it was for a suspicious package, and it also kept me from getting home. I had the distinct pleasure of standing on Bancroft for an hour and a half while they brought at the robot to poke around the package. I'd like to note that was the worst evacuation I've ever seen. I was told I couldn't go into my building, but I saw all sorts of people standing in front of shops on that block of Telegraph just chilling and the police weren't telling them to leave. So what was all the fuss over?

Just a friendly neighborhood suitcase

Just a suitcase. I'm guessing it probably belongs to one of the many homeless people who cart around suitcases around here. The cop I talked to said that nobody even phoned it in, and that his "Lieutenant decided that it was suspicious." Another wonderful adventure in the life of Kyle.

I did however learn that the University of California has their own bomb unit and that they actually serve a lot of the bay area. I also learned that they don't send out the bomb unit for every suspicious package, so I don't know why this one was particularly special.

Instead of a photo a day thing today, I'm going to post a bunch from Hardly Strictly. Everybody rocked it:

Day 1

I'll bet he was at Woodstock too

Visibility was low

The bacon-hotdog man rocked

That bus does not look like it rocked, if I'm being honest

The contrast between empty and full

Day 2

So kind of a lot of people wanted to see Steve

Those geese rocked it

He really rocked the banjo

The Devil Makes Three really rocked

Self-explanatory

These two were rockin' it as well

Even that plane was rockin' it

This kid was certainly rockin'

Gogol Bordello threw a party, of course

A drone filming the concert/rockin'

And of course, earth rocked it

Hardly Strictly is a whole lot of fun. If you like music festivals (that are free), and you like San Francisco, it's absolutely the place for you. A funny side note about the drone that was recording the concert. Some people around me were complaining about privacy concerns and generally being paranoid about the drone's presence as they took pictures of strangers around them with their iPhones.